Implementing and Managing your Culture Plan

Written by Danielle Spencer

To turn culture aspiration into reality you need to actively manage your culture, just as you do your other business operations.?

In this blog we’re going to look at why organisations often struggle with this, how to overcome common obstacles, and how to measure success.

Why are so many organisations struggling to manage their culture plan?

We talked in a previous blog article about what a culture plan is. While many companies have a plan, a lot are facing challenges putting them into practice. In our experience, there are three common reasons for this:?

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1. Trying to do too much, all at once

Many organisations we work with are ambitious, have plenty of good ideas and are keen to move at pace. The combination of these drivers often translates into hundreds of people-related initiatives across the company from various sources, all scheduled to land in the same 12-month period.?

2. The current culture resists

Any form of change management involves confronting the challenges of the current state. For example, in cultural terms, if you're trying to introduce simplicity, high accountability, or innovation and yet the most common behavior patterns in the culture today are complexity, lack of discipline, and risk aversion, then you’re likely to meet significant resistance to efforts to introduce a different way of thinking and acting (at least in the initial stages).?

3. Size and scale of the change challenge

The goal of a culture plan is to send different messages about expectations of behavior to encourage people to embrace and demonstrate something new. However, it’s hard to achieve message cut through and have real impact in large complex companies that have hundreds of thousands of employees. The challenge is often compounded by operations spread across diverse cultures, geographies, and lines of business, each with their own particular priorities and challenges.